Using Eye-Tracking to Understand Human Responses to Traditional Neighborhood Designs

New research in brain and cognitive science is changing how we understand how people perceive and experience the built environment, offering key opportunities for urban planning, urban design, and architecture. Sixty-three college students looked at different scenes of New York City public buildings in a set up with an eye tracker in front of a monitor displaying images. Half of the images had design characteristics exemplary of traditional neighborhood design (TND) (like narrow streets, complex facades, and bilateral symmetry). Subjects tended to show greater eye fixation on building fenestration in TND environments, as opposed to the non-TND environments.